Win or lose, Trump will leave a lasting memory
Whether he wins or loses next week’s election, Donald Trump will go down in history as one of America’s most remarkable presidents.
A political novice, he broke all the rules.
He was a master of the nasty personal attack, excoriating not only his political foes but his ostensible allies.
He was willing to play footsie with all kinds of crackpots — from those who question Barack Obama’s birthplace, to those who believe the U.S. is run by a secret cabal of child abusers.
He even had nice things to say about white supremacists.
He was unusually casual about the truth, spawning an entire generation of journalists devoted to Trump factchecking. But what he knew — and what the journalists didn’t understand — is that in his world facts didn’t matter. Rather, impressions mattered.
Trump’s supporters didn’t necessarily expect their president to be 100-percent accurate. But they did expect him to signal that he understood them. And he usually did.
As president, Trump was singularly self-absorbed. He focused on how he was portrayed in media, particularly Fox News. Critical coverage could drive him into a rage. His attention span was determined by Twitter and cable TV.
All of this resulted in a White House in permanent chaos. Not surprisingly, it was hard to get things done. Indeed the surprise was that anything was accomplished.
And yet, stuff happened. Almost single-handedly, Trump forced the U.S. and the world to reconsider free trade.
Instead (and like many in the Canadian left) he favoured the use of tariffs to create managed trade aimed at rebuilding domestic manufacturing.
This policy, while not popular among mainstream economists, did resonate with voters — to such an extent that Joe Biden’s Democrats had to come up with a matching “Buy American” scheme.
Trump vowed to keep America out of new, pointless foreign wars and so far has kept his word, a record unmatched since Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Trump has even made a deal with the Taliban to withdraw the last remaining American troops from Afghanistan.
The Middle East is more complicated. By moving the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Trump has signalled an end to the pretence of U.S. neutrality there. America is not neutral. It is on Israel’s side. For the Palestinians to think otherwise is delusional.
At the same time, Trump has chosen not to make war against Israel’s mortal enemy Iran. He has levied punishing economic sanctions against Tehran. But so far, no war.
Then, of course, there is North Korea. Ultimately, Trump’s quixotic peace talks with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un went nowhere. But at least, it can be argued, the U.S. president tried.
Throughout, it has never been easy. Like many before him, Trump came to power as a self-proclaimed outsider determined to clean up Washington. What made him different is that he really was an outsider, with few connections to the political and security elites that comprise official Washington.
When the president agreed with the official consensus, he was fine. But when he broke from it, official Washington retaliated — usually by leaking embarrassing material.
The Democrats never accepted his 2016 win and spent four years trying to impeach him. He was routinely accused of being a Russian stooge and Chinese patsy. He was blamed for the spread of the COVID-19 virus — even though state governors bear primary responsibility in matters of disease control.
Americans usually treat their presidents with great deference. Even Richard Nixon was granted the respect of office. Not so Trump. If he loses, his political foes will not have a kind word to say. If he wins they almost certainly will try to impeach him again.
He was a master of the nasty personal attack, excoriating not only his political foes but his ostensible allies